Boris Bekhterev was born to a family of musicians. He began studying music at the age of five and was educated at Moscow’s Gnessin School of Music, being awarded a medal of merit at his graduation. He continued to improve his mastery until attaining a doctorate with outstanding results at Moscow’s Tchaikowsky Conservatoire, studying under the famous Maestro J. Milstein.
In 1970, having won first prize in the Soviet Pianists’ Competition, he began giving concerts both as a soloist and in duo with the outstanding violinist Vladimir Spivakov. Boris Bekhterev has played at some of the most prestigious concert halls in the Soviet Union, in Europe: Vienna’s Konzerthaus, The Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome, La Scala Theatre in Milan, in the United States: New York’s Carnegie Hall, in Japan and other nations. He boasts a very wide repertoire, which extends from the baroque style of Bach and Scarlatti, through Classicism and Romanticism, touching on French Impressionist culture, and arriving at the modern and contemporary composers. A large part of his repertoire consists of works by Russian composers. He has played with many orchestras in the Soviet Union and with chamber orchestras such as the Virtuosi of Moscow, the English Chamber Orchestra, the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra of Budapest and the Prague Chamber Orchestra.
From 1972 to 1986 he taught at the Moscow Conservatoire. During that time, he also ran the Académie Internationale of Tours (France) advanced courses for four years.
From 1987 to 1996, Boris Bekhterev lived in Italy, where he continued to pursue his activities as a concert pianist, giving recitals and playing chamber music with violinists Boris Belkin, Uto Ughi and Pavel Berman, with the flutist, Maxence Larrieu, as well as teaching in various Master Classes. For several years, he has been a member of the “Trio Cesar Franck” (together with the violinist Felice Cusano, and the cellist Susan Moses) and gave concerts in Italy and in the United States.
In 1996 he was invited by Kobe College in Japan to be Professor of Piano and since 1998 he has been teaching also at Mukogawa University. During the 15 years he lived in Japan, he often played recitals and chamber music with well-known musicians from Japan and other countries as well as Lieder programs with famous singers.
He has been invited regularly to be part of the jury of important international competitions. In Japan he was part of the Jury of the most important piano competition in Tokyo “Mainichi Shimbun” for 7 years.
His records have enjoyed a good deal of success. Published by “Melodia” and EMI, they include Schubert’s sonatas, some rarely performed pieces by Prokofiev as well as many works performed together with Vladimir Spivakov. From 1994 to 2003 he recorded 6 CDs of Russian and European music for Phoenix Classics. Since then he has been recording for Camerata Tokyo, Japan. Eight CDs with music of Skriabin and Medtner have been released and have enjoyed very good reviews.
In 2015 he completed recording of all Skriabin compositions for piano solo.
Since 2011 he is back in Italy where he continues his pedagogic and artistic life.